Charlotte Sometimes

Tag: Costume

Odyssey Minoan – Tunic

So the costume making continues. Since MattP brought us fancy red and black site jackets for Empire, there is very little costuming that needs to be done for the game. I have a jacket, I have trousers, I have shirts, I can get on the field in kit. I don’t quite have enough to wear something clean each day, but that’s a minor problem.

However with Odyssey there is no ‘site kit’ so I still need to make more of my own. This time, it’s a black tunic to hide the camera straps (which are also black).

I mentioned in my previous post that I enjoy making the finish of my kit as good as it can be and this piece is no exception. Actually I’m going all out on this one and spending time making it seriously nice. The good thing about being time-rich is that I can finish it to a standard that is higher than I can buy. Well, I probably could convince a trader to finish it as nicely as I’m planning to, except it would cost me an absolute fortune.

Costs:

Fabric: 1.15m of £3 per meter Ditte from Ikea – £3.45

Trim: Ceolred Monger, £7.50 for 4m, I think – £5.63

Total: £9.08

Illiani asked me on FB to break down the process I was using to finish the kit, so this is picture and explanation heavy.

I started out with a pattern I drafted from a book I have called Metric Pattern Cutting for Women’s Wear. I don’t have the book here, but I’ve written on it ‘Easy Fit Kimono’ which I think was the name of the pattern I drafted it from within the book. Here’s the pieces and the top that they made (neckline my own alteration):

Yeah, it’s not your ‘basic’ T-tunic that is sold as basic LRP kit, but it sure as hell is more comfortable as far as I’m concerned. The very gently sloped shoulder and sleeve, imo, makes it more comfortable if you have slightly sloping shoulders like most women (and lots of men too). I guess if you’re really broad then the basic T-tunic would be more comfortable.

Here’s a closer look at the pattern pieces, you might be able to distinguish some of my workings if you’re interested, there’s not really any rocket science going on:

I took those blocks, laid them onto pattern paper and traced round them. The tunic is quite snug round the hips on me but that isn’t a problem for the shirt because obviously I’ve slit the sides as you can see in the first picture. A floor length tunic would be less forgiving so it had to flare from the waist. I decided to double the hem in size from the waist to allow good movement, and also because I want it to foof out behind me when I walk… yeah… foof is totally a technical word.

Here’s the drafted pattern, pinned to fabric and cut out. Since it’s almost identical front and back, I’m actually cutting four layers here – both on the fold for the front and back pieces. And four sleeve pieces. Efficiency ftw! (Sorry, totally out of focus. Took the picture at about 10pm.)

You can see the slight curve I added to the bottom of the tunic so that I don’t have to trim the hem later.

Then I separated the pieces and cut a V out of one of them to make the front.

After that the sleeves get french seamed to the body pieces and you end up with something that looks like this:

And then I went to bed. So from now on the pictures will be better.

I really hate turning over hems. I’m just not very good at it. They’re always a bit wonky and they never quite look right. Since I was planning to trim this tunic extensively (Minoan bling ftw) I decided to use the trim as a kind of reverse seam binding. There is a couture finish that you can use on hem’s where you basically sew a ribbon or similar piece of fabric over the join where you’d normally just turn the hem up and sew it down. Obviously that happens on the inside usually, but I’m basically going to do it on the outside leaving a beautifully clean finish on the inside too.

Now, because I hate hemming when a garment is made up too, I thought I would do it when it’s still flat. If you’re going to do this, your pattern pieces must have been cut immaculately so that they’re identical lengths. And you’re probably going to have to ease the seams together to make them fit as well. Here’s what I did.

Turn over the hem of the sleeve or the bottom by ½ inch on the right side of the fabric and iron a sharp crease. Then pin your trim over the top, concealing this raw edge. Then sew the trim carefully to the garment.

When you sew the trim to the curved hem you must pin the outside bit first and sew it (i.e. the widest circumference, the bit that will hit the floor) and then pin the inner edge (the top edge). This is because the top edge will be a smaller circumference and you’ll have to ease the trim to fit the fabric, by bunching it up slightly. If you go very slowly you should be able to ease it to fit without any creases. Then you can steam iron it later (with a pressing cloth to protect the trim) in order to shape the fabric and the trim to each other.

The picture is kind of dark, but you can see just about how I’m enclosing the raw edge of where I turned the hem up. Remember, this is the right side of the fabric.

This isn’t the normal foot I’d use on my sewing machine, but I thought I’d also add in a picture of how to sew trim. Trim often has a border of plain colour around it. You want to match your top thread to this colour as accurately as possible (get an assistant in a sewing shop to help you match thread – there’s a trick to do it where you undo some of it and lay it across the fabric – when the thread ‘disappears’ you have the right colour). As much as possible sew only within the this band of colour, like this:

By doing this I have an almost invisible finish on the trim itself – the brown thread is hidden in the brown foil of the trim. I used black thread in the bobbin so that the back very neatly looks like this:

And then when you take it off the machine and lay it out, this is what you have:

Next step was to sew up the two sides and under the arms in order to make it a whole tunic rather than two halves. I don’t like raw edges, as I’ve already said, so I used a kind of modified felled seam. Basically what I did was I sewed the seam as normal and then folded under each side of the seam allowance and sewed that fold to the garment each side of the original seam. See here:

From the outside that looks like this:

Just don’t look too hard under the armpits – as usually I have completely cocked them up. I don’t know why I struggle with armpits so much. I just do.

But anyway, after that all that you need to do is french seam the shoulders and tops of the arms, turn it back the right way and you’re virtually done! There is one last thing that I need to do which is to bias bind the neckline, but that requires me making some bias binding (or buying some if I’m feeling lazy) and I’ve not got round to that yet.

Gosh, that’s a terribly out of focus photo. I’m almost ashamed to call myself a photographer.

It looks like this when it’s assembled with the linen outer tunic:

All I need to do now is make the sash/belt/thing and some pouches to keep my junk inside. Awesome. And get Rich from Evenlode to make me a fancy camera strap, but I might need to wait for some money before that happens.

July 1, 2014
Odyssey Minoan – The Outer Tunic
I love making costume. I swear that sewing and making is in my blood almost as much as photography. I’ve not been able to make nearly as much as I’ve wanted to over the winter though due to first having a tiny room in student digs, then finding myself living in one room at mine and my Dads old house with no heating… it wasn’t exactly conducive to costuming. However now I have a decent size flat with a HUGE front room and more than enough space to properly draft patterns on real rolls of pattern paper and then cut large amounts of fabric. Fabulous!

I didn’t yet have any costume for Odyssey, despite Odysey: The Arrow of Fire being my third event. So I figured I had two months to rectify that problem before Odyssey: The Dweller in the Deeps in August.

I started with the easy win. An outer tunic to hide my cameras. My cameras are obnoxiously obvious when I’m wearing them. The other problem has been that when I first started shooting LRP I shot with just a camera on a neck strap which wasn’t that invasive. As a result I made loads of light colour costume because it’s nice and cool and to be frank, I had about a bolt of Ikea muslin hanging around. Then I upgraded, bought an amazingly cool cross body camera strap but it’s black and has lots of straps and does not fit the world at all.

So it started off with this. I traced a pattern roughly off the top half of a hi-vis vest. If someone else has already done the work then why bother doing it again? Before extending the length to make it finish somewhere around my ankles. I was going to inset gores into it but decided that cutting it like this with a wider bottom would allow me to french seam the entire inside, which appears to my utter neat freak. Basically, I only ever make something if I can do a better job (or have it vastly cheaper) than I could buy it. So I meticulously finish inside seams (most of the time) in order to make myself something really nice.

Costings:

Linen fabric: £7.10 from eBay including postage (Still have enough left to make sash and some bags).

Trim: £4.50 from Ceolred Monger.

Total: £11.60. With some left over to spare.

This is actually it with the fabric cut out too. Since I’m so short I managed to cut these pieces selvage to selvage on the fabric (£8 linen from Ikea) meaning that it only took me a fraction over a meter and a half to make.

As I said, I french seamed the sides and shoulders to make the basic structure.

This is it unironed at the moment which is why it’s a slightly strange shape. You’ll also notice that I edged the front opening, neck and arm holes in cute bias tape. I’m just waiting for it to hang for a couple of days before I cut and finish the hem. Nothing special, I’m just going to turn it up and inch or so.

I’ve also got to the stage where I’ve begun acquiring random bits of pattern paper with vague instructions written on them. So I’ve started to store them like this, with a picture of the garment and some brief notes:

Still to make/finish for next Odyssey:
1. Full length black tunic to go under this outer tunic.
2. Sash with bull embroidery.
3. Trousers for Simon (because he seems to have skinnied out of his old kit).
4. Mongolian inspired kimono/coat thing in black.
5. Quilt that has been in the works for some time for Minoan tent.
I should also show you come of the goodies that I got for the next Odyssey too. A tray and bowls from Ikea to fill with nice cheese, bread and olives for the Minoan tent. Not that we’re having a middle-class thing in there. We’re not a bunch of foodies at all…

And not to forget, the miles and miles of fabric that I bought last weekend. About 26 meters of it in total, including the linen for this tunic.

More grey linen too, not sure what I’ll make from that. Potentially a nice, long tunic as an alternative to the black one. The self striped fabric is actually a bedspread, I thought it would make nice Minoan trousers, but it all looked a bit beige when I held it up to the tunic. They might still be trousers for another outfit though. Or possibly a shirt.

And this is 16 meters of gorgeous muslim from Tahim’s in Coventry. It’s not blue, but rather a beautiful slate grey. It’s destined to be shirts and things so that I can keep putting on clean clothes at events. It’s gorgeously thin, very slightly sheer. Perfect for summer. I also bought myself some commercial patterns from Simplicity to make them out of, but I’m not so convinced having looked at them closely.
June 29, 2014
The larpers guide to getting photographed
OR: WE DON’T WANT TO BREAK YOUR IMMERSION

Time and time again: ‘People never take photographs of me, how do I get in photographs at LRP?’ Obviously now I can only speak for myself, but here’s what you need to do to get into my photographs at Empire or Odyssey.

Be in the same place as me.

Obviously, you can’t really control this because you never know where I’ll be. It’s made considerably easier at Odyssey because I hang out in the arena most of the time. However out on the battlefield at Empire, when there are potentially 1000 or so players and monsters at each others throats, where will I be?

I’ll be where it looks cool. That means I’ll primarily be looking for shots that will firstly look great for PD’s marketing material and secondly I’ll be looking for shots that will make it into my portfolio. Over the course of six Empire events I’ve learnt who will consistently give me great shots. Highguard for example in their matching uniforms and shield walls never fail to look cool when they’re on the open field. Those neat lines? They’re just so satisfying to my OCD. On the other hand the scrappy Orcs always look awesome in the woodland.

Have great kit.

Costume is a huge part of what makes me decide to take a picture. It doesn’t have to be the most ‘on brief’ kit in the world for your nation, but it does have to be of a reasonable standard. And a reasonable standard can be just a simple tunic and belt, as long as it’s worn well with no distractions. What do I mean by distractions? Well starting with the costume itself it has to be well made and have vision with the combinations you’re wearing. If you wear a bright pink tunic with neon green trousers, I’m most likely going to pass over you.

Badly made costume can also be a real problem. If your seam has come undone between events, then just fix it. An unravelled seam still retaining it’s pristinely ironed crease is just… ugly. It doesn’t even matter if you fix it badly – do you reckon that all medieval warriors knew how to sew? Or do you think they just fixed their kit to the best of their ability so that it didn’t get any worse while they were out fighting?

On the other hand, brand new and pristine costume doesn’t look great. We know that you love your brand new costume that you spent hours making or that you commissioned from an awesome costumer. You know what you need to do before your first event? Wear it. Wear it round the house as often as you can. Take it to the woods and run around for a few hours rubbing it on trees and falling over and then wash it several times. In fact, chuck tunics and other basics in every wash you do between now and your first event with it. Fight in it, practice with the rest of your group. Make it look lived in and not like you took it out the packet that morning. In fact, if you do take it out the packet that morning, at least iron the packing creases out of it. (Of course, disregard this paragraph if you have the kind of character who throws their clothes away after wearing them just once.)

Other bugbears include bits of costume that just aren’t in keeping with the setting. That includes belt pouches with coke cans in, water bottles that are plastic, and – I’m sorry – glasses. I mean that’s not true, I do photograph people who are wearing glasses. But man, I really hate the way that glasses look in pictures. Sometimes it can look cool, there’s a lady who wears lenses tinted really dark grey and she has a black and white costume and they look pretty cool. But everyday reading glasses really don’t do it for me. Before you moan about this point – I wear glasses too. I know it’s not very pleasant to put your fingers in your eyes and put contact lenses in but actually it’s not that bad when you get used to it. In fact I recently discovered five day extended wear contacts, so you can put them in on the first day of an event and not have to take them out until you get home. Wonderful stuff. Or reenactment glasses, they’re cool too. Expensive, but hardly as expensive as the custom armour you most likely bought. As aways, we’re talking about being aspirational here.

Edited to add: You know what my main problem with glasses in photographs is? They reflect light. And that means that actually, many, many shots with glasses in get chucked on the cutting room floor, even if they’re the best shot in the world otherwise with the most fabulous kit and the most emotive roleplayers. They’re just not things that are very compatible with taking photographs – or possibly that just applies to photographers with my level of skill.

Roleplay.

Ok, here’s the biggie. You might be wondering what I’m doing talking about roleplaying in a post about LRP. I mean, people don’t actually go to LRP to roleplay, do they? Certainly it feels that way on the field sometimes.

What all the pictures so far in this post have in common is that I photographed people roleplaying. From the minotaur surveying his territory to the Highguard soldier watching a ritual being prevented to the two medics nervously watching their families fight. They’re all roleplaying.

And if they’re roleplaying, then they’re not posing.

I’m not at Empire or Odyssey to shoot posed portraits or carefully crafted scenes. Well I am, but I do that before time in or while in the OC field. During time in for me it’s strictly documentary and we have written rules at PD to enforce this policy across all crew photographers.

There’s a really good reason for this. I was always taught that if something is worth doing then it’s worth doing properly. If I’m going to shoot staged shots of LRP then I want to take the time and effort to crack out all the gear I need to make the image in my head, and I want to direct the models in the shot to exactly how I want them to look. The same result will not be achieved by you striking what you think is an awesome pose, when actually it probably looks a bit rubbish.

Don’t pose.

No really. Don’t.

When you pose, you do three things. You look silly, you break the immersion of the people around you and you break my immersion.

Ok so you probably understand you look a bit silly posing in the middle of a battlefield and you probably even get that you’re breaking the immersion of people around you (why would you do that to your fellow players? It’s as bad as swigging from a Strongbow can in the end stands of Odyssey… oh wait…) but you’re probably wondering how you break my immersion.

Photographers don’t have immersion at LRP, right? They have hulking white lenses, massive black digital cameras that light up, and ugly modern harnesses to carry their gear about, right? Wrong.

I get into the zone, as it were. For the period that I’m photographing during time in, I’m also living the game with you. I might not be playing the game (although actually, some of my friends now roleplay with me as if I was my character and just ignore the fact I have cameras) but I’m there in the story with you. I feel the highs and the lows and I feel the pain when well loved characters die (Jude – damn you, I nearly cried).

When I’m in the headspace I take photographs that I love. Look at the shot above – the heady mix of ceremony, the dusk, the acrid smoke and the bubbling noise of the rest of the camp – I like to think that I got all that across in the shot I took. You know what would have ruined my headspace and caused me to get out of my little photographer zone? The dude in the horns looking over at me and pulling a dramatic pose. I mean not only would it have looked shit, but it would have ruined my own immersion into the ritual and it would have knocked me off my stride.

On top of that, if you pose for me then I walk away. And I ask other photographers to do this same. It’s not a rule, but I’d like to try and culture this behaviour or ‘posing and expecting a photo to be taken’ out of Empire. It happens less to me now than it did at the start of Empire. And to be fair, occasionally I have to give kudos to some players who very creatively tell me that they want me to take their picture. In particularly the Orcs at I think the last event of 2013 made some comment about how convenient it was that they had their new kit on when reporters were about. Loud enough for me to hear but not too loud for other players to hear. Letting me know that you don’t mind me invading your roleplaying space while staying in character is ok, but if I choose not to accept the invitation just don’t get pissed or feel it’s anything personal. I probably noticed something that you didn’t, where my presence would actually be breaking someone else’s immersion. Or the shot just wouldn’t have looked good – and not taking the shot in the first place means that I have less post-processing to do afterwards and you can see the pictures that little bit quicker after an event.

In summary:
1. Be cool.
2. Look cool.
3. Roleplay.
4. Don’t break the immersion of other players or me.
If all else fails…

You can totally book me for a shoot. Here in Banbury. Cause I’m nice like that. 😉
June 19, 2014
The drafting of the doublet

The last 24 hours has been mostly consumed by writing an essay involving Nazi propaganda and Catholics, and making a pattern for a doublet. Oh, and a series and a half of Game of Thrones, which I seem to do when every Empire approaches (and it’s Spartacus for Odyssey).

You see, I’ve managed to acquire several nice pieces of fabric that aren’t enough to make a cote or similar large garment, but are too large (and nice) to just use for bags and things.

So was born the idea of the sleeveless doublet.

It’s not the easiest thing to make. First you have to draft a pattern, which doing it the traditional way involves pinning fabric onto the person to get their shape. Of course, I can’t pin it on myself however luckily my dressmakers dummy is actually a really good approximation of my shape. I really need to pad her out a little belly, but I’m hoping that’s more of a temporary state of affairs while I get back into the swing of running.

Above you can see the pinned pattern after I’ve cut half of it away. You basically pin two pieces of fabric around the person, working in quarters, to get patterns with seam lines along where the pins are. Then you take the whole thing off, draw where the pins are, transfer it onto tracing paper, even it up with a set of french curves and hopefully you have something approximating a pattern custom made for yourself.

Then you make it up in fabric and see how it fits. Fortunately mine fit just time, but you can of course go backwards and forwards between paper and fabric several times. But once you’ve done it, you’ve got a tight fitting pattern block that you can then adapt for other shapes for garments for yourself.

I got a load of buttons from eBay over the last few weeks. They’re all silver and lovely. I don’t know which ones are for which garment at the moment, but I’ve got choices. I might have to get more.

And then this is the mess I woke up to this morning. That’s my drafted doublet on the stand, although it’s not pinned closed. It’s VERY tight fitting.

The fabric is a black silk brocade with roses all over in black. Should be nice. I hope.

March 27, 2014
The Cote

Feeling inspired by good progress on the coif, I decided to start working up a cote for my Empire costume. After all, a good archivist needs a flowing cote to go swashbuckling in tombs, right?

I know it’s not really very ‘Highguard’. but I’m also kind of limited by the fact I spend most of the time in the woods with my camera round my neck. The challenge here for a young and adventurous archeologist type is how to find a compromise between the strict lines flow of Highguard, while maintaining the ability to move easily. Armour hides a multitude of sins for most people. I think the key here is in the colour. Black, black and more black, with contrast white linings and bindings.

But I have come across a problem. I want a men’s fitting cote, but I have a woman’s body.

So following the guides in the medieval tailors handbook, I worked up the pattern for a 14thC men’s cote. The problem is, it’s too big at the shoulders but fits round the chest. As the author notes the whole ball of the shoulder should sit outside the seam and in the sleeve itself for a period fit, but you can see that’s not happening here (even though my mannequin doesn’t have shoulders).

Actually that’s a terrible picture. But you can also see the other problem I’m having, setting gores into flat pieces of fabric. Fuck that, I’m going to quarter it and stick a seam down the front and back.

So here’s where I started to pin it on the stand in order to change the fit of the shoulders.

I’ve taken some out the front and back and also narrowed the shoulders to make up for me not having big, broad, manly shoulders.

You can see that the medieval sleeve fit is *very* small. Just a 40cm circumference. This is where my problem is apparently lying. Them sleeves, they’re bloody ugly. However I’m not sure if this is a result of my sewing, or if early medieval cotes just had ugly sleeves…

Looks great if I just walk around with my arms held out at right angles the whole time…

So anyway. The other problem with pulling it in so much to fit is that I’ll never get it on and off. Form fitted is great when you’re a guy, but harder when you have breasts. So I have two choices, I either make it button up the front (I’m not keen) or I go for a less authentic fit.

I made these linens early on last year and they fit really nicely. I enjoy wearing them because they’re so comfortable.

They’re a kimono style sleeve which gives lots of room for movement, and a sloped shoulder. I know I lose *alot* of the authenticity, but I think it might be a worthwhile compromise considering what I’m trying to do.

March 10, 2014
The coif

So last night I made the first successful iteration of the coif for my empire costume! Well, semi successful – it still needs some adjustments.

It went through a few iterations, beginning with me pinning fabric on my head I front of the tv.

And the final pattern:

Leading to the final work up of the cap:

The only problem is that this is now the state of my front room as I try to determine exactly what fabric I own…

March 9, 2014
Outer layers inspiration

More Spartacus here.

I can’t just wear a tunic, I’ll freeze to death. I’m always cold and being outside for four days doesn’t help. Who thought it would be a good idea to run a mediterranean themed game in the UK? I know exactly who. I’ll get my revenge one day.

So wraps and cloaks it is then. The long, hard task is going to be finding some suitable fabric for a wrap of some sort. The three examples below are varying approaches. There’s Spartacus’ rough blanket. I’ve got something that might be suitable here, it’s a threadbare throw that was on our couch for as long as I can remember, and worn away over the years by two labradors. Alternatively there’s the praetors smart red wrap with that golden trim that is just to die for. This in blue perhaps? I hesitate to look too Roman though.

Ganicus is in there because I like the layering his character has. You really get the feeling he’s carrying all his possessions on his back, don’t you?

Speaking of Ganicus, I’m just going to indulge for a second.

Anyway. (Also I like those bracers for my Empire character.)

Ashur in the first couple of series also had a beautiful cloak but I’m not sure how I’d go about creating something like that. Might have to visit some upholstery fabric shops. Perhaps a jacquard of some sort might work?

I want to talk about female costumes in Spartacus.

It is hard to talk about practicality here in any meaningful way, because obviously the men also have their bare chests and stomaches exposed. In southern Italy in Roman times I can imagine this would have been practical if you were a gladiator. No top getting in the way of your armour, nothing to stop you sweating, free to move etc.

I can also understand why the female slaves don’t have leather armour in most cases. The male slaves took it with them when they were freed from being gladiators anymore. It made sense for them to retain their leather arm pieces, leg armour and the like.

But the girls don’t seem to have any armour at all. I can’t imagine that after fellow slaves had fallen they wouldn’t have picked up and adapted the guys armour? And on top of that, the outfits are just so sexy. It’s all scant little threads of fabric wrapped around their boobs! God, if I tried that everything would all fall out within hours.

Having said that, I do like Navias outfit for the show. She wore something practical and it seems that she also salvaged bits of armour from other slaves. Why couldn’t all the female characters be like this instead of being ultra sexy? (Citizens excluded as they were generally in their nice dresses.)

January 25, 2014
Four hours of sewing

The first four hours of sewing on the Costume Challenge are done! I started at about 1400hrs and finished at about 1800hrs when it became far too cold in my house to keep going (broken heating…).

Work on the first tunic began!

First a sketch:

I will note here for when I remake it, that I shortened the sewn edge from 28″ to 24″.

Then cutting. Everything is a straight strip of fabric the width of the bolt so I used a long gridded ruler and a rotary cutter. Must invest in a new blade, this one is not quite so good anymore.

Mmmm, many strips…

My grandfather was a tailor and it has highly influenced the way that I create. I don’t see the point in doing things if I’m not going to do them to a standard higher than I can afford to buy. For that reason I do things like enclose every seam. Every single seam. I don’t mind that it takes me longer because the finish of the piece if worth it to me, to create a beautiful garment that I want to wear and will last for many years. I will not make something you can just buy off the peg.

Check out the wonderfully neat french seams on the blue stripe! The blue fabric is pieced into the black rather than appliquéd on. I did consider the latter but decided it would be harder to get a lovely straight stripe.

And here is where I left it. The side seams have been put in, it’s just raw around the arm scythes and the hem. I was going to just turn them up, but I think I will end up bias binding them. I am unsure yet if I want to bind in black or blue. Any thoughts?

The neckline is simply just ‘not sewn’ across the opening to make it a straight slash. It’s faced by simply turning over 4″ before sewing the shoulders together. The good thing about Ikea ‘Ditte’ fabric is that it has a lovely finished edge to the selvage!

January 25, 2014
Stay up till Four In The Morning…

Well actually that’s a lie. I work up at four in the morning with inspiration for my sew-along.

It might be the four seasons of Spartacus I’ve watched over the last few weeks while procrastinating about working my way through my Semester 2 reading list, but Josh Hannah crept his way into my head and promptly prodded me awake. I’ve struggled to find ideas for things to wear to Odyssey, making do with my generic Empire kit last year. But it wasn’t really appropriate. The problem is that I am not a player, I am not a Minoan, but I spend all day in the arena effectively interacting with people. It needs to be easy enough to move in, yet disguise my camera kit, and as gender neutral as possible because I ain’t running around at LRP in girlie clothes. (Sorry girls who like girlie clothes, it’s just not me).

Enter Batiatus.

The overall design of his tunic and toga remains the same. It is always a simply cut tunic pulled in at the waist with a narrow leather belt and a toga thrown over his shoulder and tucked into his belt. His father also wears the same. In the gallery there are a few colour variations too, showing simpler designs alongside the blue variation that he mostly wears.

I don’t know the historical accuracy of the toga, I’d always been brought up to believe that togas were huge lengths of fabric akin to a sari that were draped in particular ways. But it looks pretty cool, so I don’t mind too much. Plus the beau didn’t scowl at me in the same way that he scowled at my beanie at the last event when I showed him, so I can only take that as a good thing.

And here’s what got put down on paper at 4am after I’d managed to find myself a sketchbook:

I know, it’s not the most coherent bunch of drawing and writing, but I needed to make sure I remembered it if I got back off to sleep (I didn’t…).

I’m going to take colour inspiration from the other Minoans who were apparently given the brief ‘autumnal’ and especially Sabrina’s outfit:

And oh look, I also found someone else wearing my outfit in different colours…

So the first thing to do is to work out some measurements and gave a first go. I’m not imagining it’s going to be rocket science. I have some black Ikea Ditte fabric and some blue of the same, I’ll start there.

However I also noticed these sneak into the Ikea fabric collection recently:

MINNA comes in a brown, a dark grey, a mauve and a white. I think I have plans for these. Ikea also does nice linen for £8 a meter…

January 24, 2014